But the rush for free or heavily discounted tickets can have the opposite effect. In Germany, the first long weekend of 9 euros per month tickets led to overcrowding, service interruptions and thousands of hours of overtime for staff. In Spain, Muñoz Nieto warns that if train frequencies are not increased, services will become overcrowded; plus, clearing one mode and not others could pull passengers away from buses or subway services.
Encouraging services when lowering rates costs money – that has to come from somewhere. In Spain, the free tickets are paid from a windfall tax on energy companies and banks that are estimated to be worth 7 billion euros in two years. “Subsidizing trains is phenomenally expensive, but it has to be done if you want to get a lot of people in and out of cities for work,” said Paul Chatterton, a professor of urban futures at the University of Leeds.
And public transportation systems around the world are already subsidized to some degree with public funds. In France, fares are only 10 percent of the public transport budget. Luxembourg could make trains for free easily because a two-hour ticket costs only 2 euros, while the fares yield only 30 million euros in revenue from a budget of 1 billion euros. But two-thirds of Transport for London’s budget is from fares, meaning the central government would have a bigger gap to close if they wanted to make all public transport in the capital free.
Transit systems that rely heavily on tariffs for funding came under tremendous pressure during the pandemic, with many networks still struggling as commuters move to hybrid work. For example, an empty office on a Monday also means a lot of empty commuter trains. “All financing models are based on this massive commuter demand, which has been stable for 50 years,” says Mcarthur. “But then the pandemic came and that model fell apart.”
An alternative to free fares for everyone is targeted discounts, offering free or cheap passes to students, young people, seniors and people on benefits, which is already common practice. Rather than subsidizing transport costs for those who can afford it, free passes could be given to lower-income people or in regions where public transport is available but not popular. Another intermediate step is to charge a cheap flat rate, as Germany did this summer. “People would still appreciate the service, but you also generate some revenue,” Chatterton says.
Free fares may not get everyone out of the car, but will convert some trips, benefiting everyone in terms of reducing CO2 emissions and improving local air quality – even helping drivers by calming traffic. Free fares won’t lift low-income people out of poverty, but will keep money in their pockets and allow everyone to travel when they need to. Throwing out fares comes at a cost, but there are savings to be made by not investing in expensive ticketing systems and wider logistical and social benefits.
But beyond cost figures and ridership stats, there’s another way to look at it: public transit should be considered a human right, in addition to access to health care and education. It is necessary to live in a city, says Mcarthur. “Public transport is an extremely efficient way of transporting people,” she says. “Buses and trains are efficient not only for those who use them, but also for those who don’t.”